Fall is really here!

It went below 40 degrees last night

and you can feel the wonderful fall chill in the air!

So we spent the afternoon trying out new recipes for zucchini bread, brownies, and cranberry bread - from scratch, which was a bit scary for me - pork, stuffing & vegetable casserole, and indoor s'mores. I love to bake, but generally take the easier quick bread mix route as baking just makes me nervous since I can't really taste anything along the way, like I do when I am cooking. You have to give blind faith to the recipe gods that they are being nice to you and everything is going to come out just right. Luckily today most came out fine, the only thing that could have been a bit better was the brownies, don't know what I did wrong, but they just seemed a bit dry. I usually make them more cakey so tomorrow when I make them into brownie bites for our coop on Monday I am going to add an extra egg to the recipe and hope for the best.

With oil prices still pretty high and the forecast of a VERY chilly winter on the way, CJ and our neighbor spent the day gathering and splitting dead wood from our yards. We had a wonderful fire going this evening to eat our indoor s'mores by!

Although we have had a wonderful summer, I am ever so glad that things have slowed down, CJ will be home a bit more, I get to be cozy in my sweats and fall is truly here!

First Day of Fall Session

Today was our first day of Fall Session when we start back to schooling full-time - or I should say back to more "book work."

Things went really well this morning! KM was up bright and early and was very happy with the new layout of the play/school room. We are so lucky to have this extra room to be able to spread things out in. Here are some of the new things I added and/or changed:

This is our Foreign Language Center - we will be continuing to work on Spanish, but will be trying to incorporate it into our other curriculum areas as well. So we will be studying the countries where they speak Spanish for part of our Geography.

This is our "Daily Tasks" board which will allow KM to be a bit more independent, I can write down the things that will need to be done the night before so that she can get right down to work in the morning and can also be aware of what else will be going on later in the day.

This is our Election Study Center. The election poster came out of Candidates, Campaigns and Elections 4th Edition and we will be using the map to outline which states are Red states and which are Blue, as well as to track the results after the election.

KM has decided to use the computer area to do her work for now - we will see how long this lasts - so I have rearranged things a bit to make it easier to spread things out.

Here she is very happily filling out her Exchange City Job Application!
We decided, since it is one of KM's favorite homeschooling benefits, that the first day would be a pajama day!

SC was here bright and early, but was very patiently looking through her library books and doing lots of coloring, while KM was working.

Things went very smoothly, we transitioned from "Preschool" times to "Middle School" times without a lot of problem. KM was very focused and did an excellent job completing her work correctly, efficiently, and neatly! All and all we had a very nice, mellow, relaxing, productive first day of school!!

Fall Decorations - shhh really that's all they are!!!

Fall is our families favorite season!!! We love the chill in the air, wearing big bulky sweatshirts, the first logs in the fireplace, collecting colorful leaves, and spending time together outside when it is not sweltering out!

So while we have been on "school break", we have been working hard to decorate the house with lots of leaves, pumpkins, and scarecrows. We have been reading lots of stories about the fall and how things change from one season to the next. We have been discussing harvests and how the Native Americans used to store their food for the long winters. We have been watching lots of animals gathering. We discussed why it was called a Harvest Moon and what it makes it different from other moons throughout the year.

SHHHH...don't tell her how much it seems as though she is still learning!!!

I know I have said before that I am starting to understand the whole concept of unschooling, but I really am getting it more and more. Whenever we discuss something that I don't think there is anyway she would remember it, she does. She is constantly exploring and finding new things, then going and finding out what those new things are - totally on her own. I am here if she gets stuck, but that has been less and less lately. I am still too much of a control freak to just let everything go and KM NEEDS structure more than words can express, but I am seriously considering doing the unschooling thing for science and social studies.

We start our new school term next Monday and I have everything planned out, but I am thinking if it just doesn't work for whatever reason - as we had sooo many problems last year. We are just going to wing it!

Rainy Day FUN!!

One of the things that Noni was ALWAYS known for was letting the kids do things that their parents generally would not be too keen on them doing - Mud puddles was always a big one. So today when it was 90 out and it started to rain and KM asked if she could go out in the rain I said

"Why Not?"

I grabbed the baby, a ball and the hippo and out we went to play in the wonderful summer rain!

Although I was not brave enough yet to let the baby go crazy in the mud - I must ease into that one I think!!! - I did let her get absolutely soaked, stomp in puddles and push her self around on her hippo!

SC was not too sure exactly what we were doing out there when it was downpouring at first, but after a few minutes she really started getting into it and when it got too much for her she figured out that she could go across the stones to the dry porch and take a break for a second!

We had a wonderful, refreshing, cool afternoon in the rain!!!

A Wonderful Solstice Weekend!

Happy Solstice to One and All!!!

We finally had a very quiet relaxing weekend around here!

Don't get me wrong we love having people over, but sometimes you just need to have some quiet time!

Here are some things I did this weekend:
~listened to the kids in the pool
~ read a book - just for the fun of it! I know it is summer when I finally get to read something that is just for me! I started reading Remember Me? by Sophie Kinsella my FAVORITE English author
~ played with flickr - as you saw in my earlier post :)
~ floated around on my new pool lounger
~ made s'mores in the fire pit
~ watched fireflies
~ talked to my dad
~ got our bag packed for Exchange City, RI - we decided with the gas prices so high and the early (for us it is early anyway) arrival time we decided to take another mom & daughter up on their offer to split a hotel room for the night
~ played Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz on the Wii


Hope you had some time to relax this weekend! Thanks for visiting!

UGGHHHH - Enough Already!!!

Ok - it is not even summer yet and we have already had three days of over 95 and are heading for a fourth!!! It is soooo hot I can barely bring myself to get out of the pool never mind actually touch the laptop that feels like it is on FIRE!!!!!

It is so hot we had to postpone our local HS group's farm day & picnic today, so I think we are going to head off to the library and lunch out to enjoy some AIR CONDITIONING!

Hopefully by the end of the week it will be cooling off a bit & I should have some good pics to share at the very least!

June 1st - Brought some interesting 1st!

1st - cook-out of the season

~ nice small gathering to kick off the season!

1st - time the pool was not green when we opened it

~ generally we spend most of the month of June trying to get the water clear, but for some unknown reason when we took the cover off it was crystal clear and all the levels were perfect!! - YIPPEE

1st - day in the pool

~ the pools temperature was 62, but that did not stop the children from swimming in the crystal clear pool! I thought for sure they would go in for a few minutes and that would be it but they were in there ALL DAY!!!

1st - back strokes

~ we spent all last year just trying to get her to think about floating on her back, but when she got in there this afternoon before everyone else showed up she just did it! - YIPPEE Again!!

Between Seasons

I LOVE the winter! I know many of you think that I am INSANE for this, but I truly do!
However, for some reason this year, I am yearning to start my spring cleaning. I don't know if it is because there is just soooo much stuff piling up in spots - don't laugh it feels that way to me! -or because we have had such a great weather week. I had the kids outside on the swings and everything!
I know that if I put all the snow stuff away though we are gonna get hit with a whopper of a storm. That is what always happens! So I think I am gonna start out slowly this weekend by taking down all the snow flakes & penguins and putting up some more bright springy things. I am not going to put the scarves and gloves away yet, but I may start going through the clothes to see what is gonna remain for KM and what has been outgrown over the last few monthes. - FINGERS CROSSED not too much! - so that we can make a donation run at the beginning of next week. That should help with some of these piles and maybe give me a fix to get through before I can do the full blown, winds open, rugs on the back porch, animals banned from the house, furniture moving spring cleaning I feel needs to happen.